Adap.tv Gets RTB: Real-Time Bidding For The Online Video Marketplace

Online video ad marketplace, Adap.tv, announced on Wednesday that its marketplace was now real-time bidding-enabled. DSP partner [x+1], Publicis' VivaKi and CineSport LLC each discussed its importance in the release here. The potential for marketers to track cookies across multiple supply sources as well as multiple channels presumably makes online advertising even more efficient than before.

Teg Grenager, founder and VP of Product at Adap.tv, provided perspective on the implications of the announcement.

AdExchanger.com: Can you discuss the current and future plans regarding creative formats available for real-time bidding (RTB)?

One of the primary goals of the adap.tv marketplace is to make buying and selling video easy and efficient for all parties. To do this, we have had to overcome one of the main challenges of online video: the lack of format standards adoption. We currently offer the most common in-stream video formats: 15 and 30 second (linear) video spots, with and without a 300x250 companion banner. However, we are expanding to include overlays, viewer choice ads, and other formats that our customers want.

How do you vet real-time bidders on your inventory? Can anyone participate?

In order to participate, real-time bidders must agree to our legal terms, provide a certain level of financial commitment, and meet our technical requirements. Then they can use the adap.tv console to set up an RTB feed, and specify the sites and placements they would like to bid on. The publishers that manage those placements then receive an email notification, and can return to the console to review. Every publisher has the option to approve or deny a buyer.

What types of performance metrics might be particularly important to bidders that the adap.tv marketplace will provide?

The adap.tv marketplace tracks a rich set of ad metrics that buyers can use to gauge performance. In addition to CTR – which for better or worse most advertisers still care about – we find that ad completion is a very useful metric.

What kind of volume can be expected here initially and where will this be by the end of the year?

At present, we're serving hundreds of millions of in-stream video impressions per month, and that number is growing quickly. There are over 700 video sites available for bidding today.

In terms of inventory quality, what types of publishers are RTB-enabled through the marketplace?

All of our publishers are technically RTB-enabled, however, they have the option to approve or deny RTB from certain buyers. The sites participating in the adap.tv marketplace run the gamut – from major television broadcasters and content portals, to newspapers, to local television stations, to some user-generated sites. All of the placements are labeled using a sophisticated ontology that enables buyers to choose only the inventory they want for each campaign.

And, do publishers have controls on their end in the RTB-enabled adap.tv marketplace?

Of course. Adap.tv began by delivering publisher ad serving and yield optimization tools through our onesource product, and we continue to empower publishers. We help publishers to separately enable or disable RTB for each buyer in the marketplace and, if they want, they can choose not to be available to certain buyers. Even after RTB is -initiated, we enable publishers to block ads in the RTB feed based on rules that they define.